- Judge rejects NJ US Attorney “triumvirate” in latest blow to Trump prosecutors
Source: Politico
“A federal judge has ejected the leaders of the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, concluding that Attorney General Pam Bondi illegally appointed an unusual ‘triumvirate,’ at President Donald Trump’s whim, to oversee the powerful federal prosecuting office. ‘Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this District potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?’ U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote. ‘The President doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.’ The sweeping, scolding 130-page decision repeatedly chides the administration for attempting to sidestep Senate confirmation and twist centuries-old precedents to work the president’s will.” (03/09/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/09/new-jersey-us-attorney-leaders-ruling-00819403
- Hundreds Killed in Haiti Drone Strikes, Including 60 Civilians, Human Rights Watch Says
Source: US News & World Report
“Explosive drone strikes by Haitian security forces targeting gangs have killed over 1,200 people, including 43 adult civilians and 17 children, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Tuesday, adding that operations have ramped up in recent months. Since last March, Haitian security forces, with support from Vectus Global, have carried out anti-gang operations using quadcopter drones strapped with explosives, often in densely populated parts of the capital Port-au-Prince. Vectus Global is a private U.S.-based military company led by Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Haiti’s prime minister’s office, defense minister, national police, Vectus, and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The U.S. charge d’affaires in Haiti told a Senate committee last month that the State Department had licensed Vectus to export its services to Haiti. A spokesperson for the U.N.-backed Gang Suppression Force in Haiti declined to comment.” (03/10/26)
- Alexander brothers found guilty on all counts in sex trafficking trial
Source: ABC News
“A jury has found the Alexander brothers guilty on all counts in their federal sex trafficking trial in New York City. Jury deliberations began Thursday for the former real estate titans, Oren and Alon Alexander, 38-year-old twins, along with their brother, Tal Alexander, 39, who have denied sexually assaulting anyone or running a sex trafficking conspiracy, as prosecutors have charged. They pleaded not guilty. Throughout the five-week trial, 11 women testified that they were sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers. At least eight of the women claimed they were drugged by one of the Alexanders.” (03/09/26)
- Iran: Regime says oil blockade will continue until attacks end, Trump threatens heavier strikes
Source: Reuters
“Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday they would not let any oil be shipped from the Middle East if U.S. and Israeli attacks continue, prompting President Donald Trump to say the U.S. would hit Iran much harder if it blocked exports. The rhetoric did little to quell a fall in crude prices and a rally in global shares that followed Trump expressing confidence in a swift end to hostilities, even after Iran showed defiance by naming Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader. … Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran was unlikely to resume negotiations with the U.S, which he said had spoken of progress after three rounds of talks. ‘Still, they decided to attack us. So, I don’t think talking to the Americans anymore would be on our agenda any more,” he said in an interview with PBS.'” (03/10/26)
- Bitcoin jumps past $70,000 as war volatility fades
Source: CoinDesk
“Bitcoin pushed back above $70,000 Tuesday morning East Asia time, completing a rapid recovery from a weekend selloff that briefly dragged the largest digital asset down to around $65,000. The move higher came as oil prices fell back below $100 and U.S. equity markets rallied. Markets turned risk off early Monday as disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz sent major oil benchmarks, WTI and brent, above $100 for the first time in years. Bitcoin dipped alongside risk assets during the initial shock but quickly stabilized in the mid $60,000 range — given Wall Street’s insulation from the energy crisis — before climbing again as markets digested the geopolitical headlines.” (03/10/26)
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/03/10/bitcoin-jumps-past-usd70-000-as-war-volatility-fades
- Judge extends limit on fedgoons’ use of chemical weapons against Portland protesters
Source: KOIN 6 News
“A federal judge furthered protections for demonstrators protesting federal immigration enforcement activities outside of Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. In an opinion and order issued Monday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, further limiting the ability of federal law enforcement to use chemical munitions. … The class action lawsuit was filed in November after numerous protesters, including an elderly couple and children, said they were targeted with chemical munitions while peacefully demonstrating outside the ICE building in Portland.” (03/09/26)
- Iran War Supporters Invent a New and Absurd Justification: It Is All About China
Source: Glenn Greenwald
by Cole Crystal“Before Operation Epic Fury began, the Trump administration spent very little energy trying to justify the looming war with Iran. The few defenses they did offer were banal platitudes, just echoes of the case for the Iraq War from more than twenty years ago: that Iran was weeks away from obtaining a nuclear device, that their ballistic missile program posed a significant threat to American assets and allies in the region, and that the Iranian people deserved liberation via regime change. But not long after the bombing began, a new (admittedly more creative) justification emerged online and in the pro-Israel media that war supporters assume will be more persuasive to those doubting the wisdom of yet another Middle East conflict. The war with Iran, we are now told by many, is not really about Iran at all. It is, instead, all about China.” (03/09/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/iran-war-supporters-invent-a-new
- Why AI and Big Data Cannot Plan an Economy
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
“Contemporary academia’s equation of ‘science’ with ‘measurement’ represents a positivist assault on Ludwig von Mises’s praxeology, not due to his mathematical deficiency, but his superior ontological grasp. While physics successfully models inanimate bodies — where a copper atom reacts to heat according to immutable, universal constants — economics concerns human action driven by conscious, fluctuating intent. Because no constant dictates that a 10 percent income rise yields an 8 percent consumption increase, economic data is merely unrepeatable history, not scientific law. Attempting to extract universal predictions from this historical debris is ‘historicism’ — a methodological error akin to using Napoleonic War statistics to forecast World War III.” (03/09/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-ai-and-big-data-cannot-plan-economy
- The War Against Anonymity
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“The Mexican government wants to stop people from using cellphones anonymously. Every mobile phone number in Mexico — some 127 million — must now be biometrically tied to the owner’s identity. Cellphone owners must register their numbers by June 30 or lose signal. The ID card to which numbers must be linked will in turn be linked, via QR code, to a national registry of biometrically verified records. Who needs anonymity? Just criminals? … The safety of journalists, dissidents hiding from other governments, targets of abusers and stalkers, and anyone with good reason to keep his identity separate from his phone will be endangered by Mexico’s new mandate.” (03/09/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/03/09/the-war-against-anonymity/
- The Fiscal Security Risk of the National Debt
Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann“Americans awoke on Saturday, February 28, 2026, to discover that the United States had launched one of the largest military operations in its history. Operation Epic Fury followed the collapse of diplomatic talks purportedly aimed at ending the Islamic Republic of Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons and its 47-year history of aggression against the U.S. and the nations of the Middle East by Iran and its proxy forces. The effort began nearly two months after President Trump first called for a 50% increase in the U.S. defense budget, bringing it to $1.5 trillion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. government was already on track to run a $1.9 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2026. Without any plan to reduce the government’s excessive spending, the new spending would require the U.S. government to borrow more, above and beyond that amount.” (03/09/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/03/09/fiscal-security-risk-national-debt/
- Dear Liberals: Don’t Forget to Brag About Liberalism
Source: The UnPopulist
by Jonathan Rauch“Critical self-appraisals are fine so long as they don’t validate bad-faith attacks on the liberal order.” (03/09/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/dear-liberals-dont-forget-to-brag
- American Gerontocracy
Source: Law & Liberty
by Aidan Grogan“America’s Boomers have established a bipartisan gerontocracy — a political and economic system under the leadership of the elderly. They take care of their own and make younger Americans foot the bill for their longer and more luxurious retirements. It’s obviously unfair, but no one on either side of the political aisle seems inclined to do anything about it. The federal government has run a budget deficit for 24 consecutive years as the gerontocracy tightened its grip on power. It’s particularly worrisome given that the political influence of senior citizens is likely to grow as the population ages, even as the economics of America’s gerontocracy become more and more unsustainable.” (03/09/26)
- Expecting Iran to Unconditionally Surrender Is a Fool’s Errand
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama“Of the many questionable decisions Donald Trump has made with regard to Iran, one of the strangest was his declaration last Friday that the United States would demand ‘unconditional surrender’ from Tehran. When Trump launched the attack with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, he was obviously hoping for a quick victory, something like the outcome he achieved when he snatched Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in January. But the war expanded across the Middle East … Normally, a smart leader in such a situation would try to lower expectations and declare an achievable objective in the war, such as degrading the better part of Iran’s ability to strike targets with ballistic missiles and drones. This would offer an opportunity for Trump to declare victory and disengage. Instead, Trump did the opposite. The new objective of unconditional surrender suddenly raised the goalposts to an unachievable height.” (03/09/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/iran-probably-wont-surrender
- Why Healthcare Is So Expensive in America, and What to Do About It
Source: Cato Institute
by Veronique de Rugy“America’s healthcare system consistently ranks as the most expensive in the developed world. It’s not, as some politicians claim, expensive because markets have failed. It’s expensive because the market has been repeatedly blocked from succeeding. Until we’re honest about that, any potential reforms will only address symptoms while ignoring the disease. The healthcare market is hindered in many ways, but the core structural problem is simple: The person receiving care is almost never the person actually paying for it.” (03/09/26)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/why-healthcare-so-expensive-america-what-do-about-it
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 03/10/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump Says He Hasn’t ‘Won Enough’ in Iran, Israeli Strikes Kill Seven in Gaza, and More.” (03/10/26)
- AI Summer, 03/09/26
Source: AI Summer
“Pete Hegseth’s war on Anthropic (with Alan Rozenshtein and Kevin Frazier).” (03/09/26)
https://www.aisummer.org/p/pete-hegseths-war-on-anthropic-with
- System Update, 03/09/26
Source: Glenn Greenwald
“The US and Israel Liberate Iran by Setting It on Fire, Poisoning the Air, Bombing Schools.” (03/09/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-us-and-israel-liberate-iran-by
- Reason Roundtable, 03/09/26
Source: Reason
“Will the War in Iran Crash the Global Economy?” (03/09/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/03/09/will-the-war-in-iran-crash-the-global-economy/